1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an animal waste disposal system, and particularly a system for disposing of solid cat waste containing materials.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
A variety of systems exist for the collection of animal waste. A classic example of such a system is the cat litter box. In conventional systems, an open box structure is provided into which a cat litter is introduced. A cat will thereafter deposit its waste (e.g., urine, feces, or both) onto the litter. Since many cats bury their wastes, there is often no urgency for removal of the waste. Thus, it is often the practice to wait a period of time and then dispose of the resulting mixture of litter and waste using conventional methods, such as by dumping all of the litter and waste mixture into a plastic trash bag. Such a technique, despite its long acceptance, has various disadvantages. For instance, lengthy delays before dumping often result in undesirable odors. Moreover, cat litter will potentially be consumed in large amounts, particularly for persons who frequently dump the mixture of litter and waste. In this regard, the associated usage of plastic trash bags may be undesirable from an environmental perspective, in view of increasing concerns for the lengthy degradation periods needed for plastics in landfills, and the volumes occupied from such disposed materials.
In an alternative waste disposal system, a ladle, shovel, or scooper instrument may be employed to scoop out waste containing materials from a litter box. This offers an advantage in that the entire contents of the litter box need not be dumped at a single time to accomplish disposal. However, it has been observed that upon scooping, a substantial amount of litter is removed, which litter has not come into contact with any waste containing material. Accordingly, using this technique still results in a relatively large consumption of litter over a period of time.
In another waste disposal process, a three box system is employed that includes two solid bottomed rectangular boxes (a first box and a second box) and a grated box or tray (having a mesh structure defined in it) that purports to sift out waste and hardened litter. This arrangement is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,217,857 and commercially marketed under the name "Lift n' Sift.RTM.". With this system the tray is lifted from the first box when the first box contains waste. The waste can then be removed on the tray. After disposal of the waste on the tray, the tray is placed into the second box, and litter (such as from the first box) is poured into the combination. This type of arrangement suffers disadvantages, however, because litter must be added to the combination, or transferred between boxes (thereby increasing the potential for mess) after each waste disposal. To avoid having to dispose of litter with each waste disposal, and to permit for reuse of litter, such adding or transferring requires the use of both the first and second boxes, in addition to the tray.